Welcome to the WJETT blog
What is WJETT?
The WJETT blog or Warwick Journal of Education - Transforming Teaching blog is designed to encourage staff and students to disseminate good practice and to engage with their peers on academic cultural critique or areas of research that they find interesting. With the increased focus on ‘teachers as researchers’ in the sector, many qualified teachers are expected to publish the outcomes of any action research projects they undertake. The WJETT blog can be the first step on your journey towards publishing and enables you to experience publishing and reviewing in a friendly and supportive environment.
You will need to scroll down the page below the tags to see the posts.
What can be learnt from a lesson observation?
The term ‘Lesson Observation’ often connotes being observed for quality assurance and feedback on practice. However, as a trainee, observations offer an excellent learning opportunity to see different pedagogy and strategies that can later inform your own teaching. Although focused on university teaching, Bell, Hendry and Thomson (2013) highlight the usefulness of watching colleagues teach for your own practice. They mention that pigeon-holing ‘observation’ in terms of peer review means that staff miss out on the important learning gains that can be made by watching another person’s practice. When observing simply for one’s own learning, their qualitive and quantitative research showed that 19 of the 20 people who participated in the study later implemented something new that they had observed into their own practice.
Being at the start of my career, lesson observations have proven valuable learning experiences. It allows one to reflect on different styles and what sort of things may work for you. Entering another’s classroom comes with a certain etiquette that Peter Master (1983) highlights. As the foreign agent in the room it is important to not be too imposing. Master points out that making endless notes will detract from you being able to fully observe the lesson and so short sentences that can be expanded on later are best. This is approach I myself took while observing.
I believe that it is probably natural as a trainee to want to observe with a special focus on behaviour management as this, in my experience, was the most daunting aspect before beginning to teach. Observing colleagues offers a useful chance to pick up key strategies and tricks. I noted in observing a Citizenship lesson that picking students to answer questions as opposed to asking for hands created a calmer learning environment where the teacher seemed to be in complete control of the discussion. This was something I later implemented into my own practice.
As useful as these observations are, when it comes to behaviour management, I have found that the best type of observation to learn from is actually ‘the unseen observation’ that is, an observation of yourself. Immediately after the lesson I will jot down my thoughts about what went well and what didn’t. Later, typing and expanding on these notes into an established reflective framework allows for true reflection to occur. In one particular lesson I faced behaviour management issues that I was able to see where down to an unclear task which was frustrating for pupils to complete. Rather than remedying the situation with sanctions, I went back to the drawing board and redesigned the task so that it was differentiated and clearer for those who had proved difficult and I told the class that they were to complete the task again. This time, without the confusion, I faced nearly zero behaviour issues. In this sense, my behaviour management was not improved by a strategy observed in another, but a failing of which I had observed in myself.
References:
Bell, A., Hendry, G. D. & Thomson, K. (2014). 'Learning by observing a peer's teaching situation.' International Journal for Academic Development. 318-329
Master, P. (1983). 'The Ettiquette of Observing. Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc (TESOL).' 497-501
Writing guidance
Can I write about anything in my blog post?
Yes pretty much. Academic cultural critique (Thomson and Mewburn, 2013) is always a good source of content for academic blogs. This can include (but is not limited to) comments and reflections on funding; higher education policy or academic life. You might also want to consider blogging about:
- Academic practice (Saper, 2006)
- Information and/or self-help advice
- Technical, teaching and careers advice
- Your research or practice
- How you’ve undertaken research
- The impact of research on your practice
- An area of research/practice that interests you
- Your teaching experiences/reflections
How long can my blog post be?
Each individual blog post should be no longer than 500 words. Long blocks of text are sometimes hard for readers to digest. Break up your content into shorter paragraphs, bullet points and lists whenever possible. Also include a list of keywords or tags as this makes it easier for Google to find your work.
Do I need to use citations?
No, this is a reflective piece so it does not need to include citations (but you obviously can include them if they are relevant).
Can I include links or images?
We would encourage you to include links to any articles that you have considered whilst writing your blog post. We also welcome the use of images (as long as you have permission to use them) as they can often help to illustrate a point and obviously will not be included in the word limit. Please remember this is a public site so if you want to include images of your students in your classes then you will need permission to do this.
What is the process for submitting a piece of work?
Your blog post should be emailed to A.Ball.1@warwick.ac.uk. Once the submission has been reviewed it will either be uploaded at the beginning of the next available week or sent back to you for editing if it requires amendments. You should then send the amended work to me once again and I will then upload it.